a thimble's worth of blood
by aikotters
Summary: Ran doubts. Ran returns. Ran finds. Ran does not like what she finds.
1. Chapter 1

a thimble's worth of blood – Ran doubts. Ran returns. Ran finds. Ran does not like what she finds.  
Warnings: Descriptions of blood, violence, mentions of corpses, trauma.

* * *

When Ran turns back on her way to the bus stop, she is full of doubt. Mouri Ran doesn't like to feel doubt. She does not like the uncertainty of what is real beneath her feet actually being real. She doesn't think about these theories. In fact she tries very hard not to.

That is why it is very easy for her to convince herself to go back the way she had come.

There is still an undercurrent of anger from her fists to her feet, a disappointment of the first date that had gone wrong. _He_ had not stopped talking about things he liked (but wasn't that just who Kudo Shinichi was? He was always fixated on the truth and how to create the truth and anything that was related to the truth, even when he thought of making her happy) and he had been proud of knowing it but now but now she wants to hear him talk about it again so she can be absolutely, positively sure.

 _He won't come back,_ her heart says, clear as day. _He's not coming back, Mouri Ran, he's_ never _coming back._

She wants to be sure, she can't help it she needs to be absolutely _sure_ because the uncertainty sounds worse than death at this moment.

There's also a steady little voice in her ear telling her she'll see him again but it will never be long enough, so that doesn't help.

So she runs, dodging irritable people behind their newspapers and on their phones because this is important this is her best friend who could be dead-

How did she get to dead?

Thankfully her ticket is still good for a few more hours but that doesn't give her any answer, just places to look. Ran runs (it's in her name) but there's not much to see and find and it's getting so dark. Her father's waiting for dinner, her mother expects a call tonight to make sure she's eating well, but she's still outside-

It's just dark enough that she almost doesn't see it. She almost trips over it. But there it is, a lump on the ground. A motionless lump on the ground. She's been to enough crime scenes to know what a dead body looks like and smells like and feels like. And yet when she reaches it, she realizes:

This person is breathing. Her fingers fumble for a cell phone she remembers she can't afford and without thought, without care for the police or the possibility of whatever it was Shinichi had thought was more important than seeing her home (which was rare he always saw her home even when they were mad at each other). She gestures again as she steps closer. her legs are quaking and she doesn't know why. she doesn't want to find this, but she's going to she knows. She knows she needs to or things will be-

Different.

And now she's close enough. Now she can see-

There's a child on the ground, a child with blood on his neck and caking into his hair. Horror rises like a volcano's top but it pauses, held back by the slow recognition that builds from years and years of fuzzy nostalgic details. The same details you forgot after seeing them every day. The things you took for granted as things naturally fuzzed over.

"Shinichi?" she whispers.

The child breathes. Each breath is fast, hot, a smoke cloud. Shinichi is sixteen years old, not six.

But this is his jacket, these are his jeans. His shoes are awkward flops on the ground. His body steams.

Ran scoops up the little boy and begins the most cautious sneaking she has ever done in her life out of the park.

Either no one notices or no one cares. Even the police forget about their anonymous tip in the wake of dealing with finding the head of a body in a roller coaster ride.

* * *

She does not go home. She cannot go home with a child dressed in Shinichi's clothes, injured and sleeping like he's caught the flu. At least he has stopped steaming now, possibly due to the heavy rain. That's not better, that's worse.

She calls the professor, calls and calls, and only when he arrives, leftovers in hand, umbrella frayed, does she burst into tears.

(She shouldn't be crying, she's not a crybaby no matter what Shinichi ever said but now Shinichi might be dead or at worst he's a child.)

She doesn't feel him moving about but she hears him coughing, pathetic little things as he shivers in the paltry cover of his over-sized things. She needs to get him dry and safe and awake.

Once, of course, she stops crying.

"You're sure this is Shinichi-kun."

Ran nods. "The clothes… the, the hair, all of it..." She shivers from cold. "He said he'd see me later… like it wouldn't mean anything… he said he'd be okay but… I couldn't believe him and…"

And it all catches up to her and her legs give out and Ran goes numb right there, for a long while she just stares blankly at the wall, unable to hear or touch or move. She's not certain if she's breathing because in dreams you don't have to breathe.

Then the boy who was likely Shinichi stirs, coughs, wheezes really. It stirs her slushy, sluggish brain, but the clear blue of Shinichi's eyes stares back at her.

And yet it doesn't.

Shinichi is not staring back at her. She is sure.

He coughs and the eyes shutter closed at the pain. "Who are you?" she hears him say and the certainty becomes truth.

"Where am I?" His voice is hoarse. "Who am I?"

"Shinichi-kun?" Ran had forgotten the existence of Agasa. Really. And judging by the way little Shinichi reacts, he had too. He leaps despite the lack of strength that should exist in such a tiny body, all the way from her, still wheezing, eyes frantically wide.

"No!" he shouts. "No no no!" He continues with that single word of panic, inching closer and closer to the door with frantic steps. And it snaps Ran free like a rubber band breaks. She looks around the small library, the furthest inside the house that they could go without risking stairs. and sees two names.

"Conan-kun?" she tries, and finds her own voice is weepy and weak and not strong and this is a child a child needs something god _she_ needs something.

His head darts to look at her and he's mouthing the word, the name, his name, over and over.

"Conan-kun," she repeats and Ran wells up in relief that her voice is stronger now. "It's okay, it was just a slip of the tongue."

"Co-nan?" he sounds out the word and her heart breaks all over again, all over the floor. She could see it if she looked down. "That's… me."

"That's you." And Agasa sounds stronger than her, than both of them. "Edogawa Conan. Ran-kun here found you outside. You must have been around a long time, you were very cold and asleep."

As if by reflex, the little boy shivers. He looks desolated.

"Who am I?" he repeats, mournful. "I can't see."

"You probably lost your glasses out here." Agasa sounds mournful, rather than able to answer. "We'll take you to the doctor's in the morning."

"Who're you?"

Ran sees the fight leaving Shinichi, sees the wariness replaced with drowsiness, with exhaustion from a real cold.

"I'm an inventor. My name is Agasa Hiroshi."

Shinichi slumps a little more but he turns his head towards Ran and she can see the slight blurriness from tears in those eyes, like he's about ready to cry himself. "An' who're you?"

Ran swallows the lump in her throat. "I'm Mouri Ran," she says through it. "My friend lives in this house. He always says I'm allowed to come over."

Shinichi blinks and his eyes droop. "You're…" He raises a hand like he's trying to point. "You're…" His head droops a little. "Ran-nee-chan?"

And he slumps over and drops entirely, all before Ran's brain can think of what to even say.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _Guess who's back in DC hell after years?_ That's right, it's _me_ , back after years. Don't even ask why, because I don't know. Don't worry this is about... three to five chapters in the first of a good few installments because I'm going to attempt to pace myself. Key word being attempt. Anyway, please leave a review in the box below and as always thank you for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

_Warnings: Brain damage, trauma, consistent misuse of tenses._

* * *

II.

Edogawa Conan is a silly name, he thinks as he slowly wakes from sleep. It's a blurry thought but it's true and what kid wouldn't be embarrassed by it?

He's pretty sure he's a kid, or at the very least, that he's _tiny_. Everything is huge and strong and too much. Even when he can't see, he can still hear and he'd really like to see. But all he has going for him is blurs and that's… that's annoying.

The rest of his brain doesn't help, all fuzzy and painful and tired. It really would be nice to just be dragged down and let it go. But he can tell the house he is in is _big_ and there are at least two big people and they know more about him than he knows about himself and-

 _You're not Shinichi,_ he tells himself in furious determination on the inside. _You're not you're not you're not and that's one more thing than where you started._

It's an alien thought, almost, but Conan agrees with it so much, so hard that he doesn't question it anymore and makes his eyes open.

The room is still dim, he notices immediately. What he can see is still blurry but it's definitely wood, well made shelves and filling his nose with the smell of old books. There's another smell, closer to him, Raspberries that he doesn't know how he knows, leather, fallen leaves, rainwater in dirty city puddles.

her voice, really far away. A voice that other person knows but he doesn't know himself. It sounds nice though, scared and hurt and Conan is pretty sure that's his fault somehow.

Not yours, his mind told him. His.

Conan turns his head to the left, uncomfortable and stiff.

Two blurs talking (he could hear them) at another set of couches probably. he made himself move. He wanted to see, wanted to see so _badly._ Even if he wasn't going anywhere, it was just better if-

The thoughts stop him like a braking motorcycle as _panic_ sets in. He has no idea who he was, no idea how to do anything, no idea where he is going, or if anyone even cared what would happen to him. And that sends bolts of numb terror through his whole body.

Edogawa Conan is six years old. When six year olds were scared or hurt or overwhelmed, they tended to throw tantrums, whine, cry, or something of the sort.

Edogawa Conan fell under the third option. If the room had been any louder, no one would have heard his sniffling or even saw the couch shake. Lucky for him the room was quiet and Ran's heart was as big as a bruise left by her fists so she was already picking him up and rocking him like her mother had done for her.

And she felt him struggle at first, resist leaning into it because heck, he didn't know her. So she waited, trying to hold back her own tear flood herself.

Then his fingers sank into her muddy jacket and he lets out a weak little cough. "Ran-nee-chan?" he mumbles, voice slurry. "Where do I live?"

Her breath hitches and she thinks he doesn't notice. (He does.) But there's not much pause after that before she says, "With me." So weakly Conan can't help but think that she's lying.

But then she continues, with much more conviction. "You live with me now, Okay?'"

His fingers dig tighter into her coat. She feels him nod. And it feels solid and right and like this was where he was supposed to be all along. With her. In some way. Shinichi is never this vulnerable, this frightened, this… helpless. Not even when he really _was_ four and six and plain old dumb for such a smart person.

She reaches out with trepidation and touches his hair. He flinches, stiffens, his head must be sore, god did they hit him there she has to find out, has to check, oh _gods_ he passed out when he could have had a concussion what was she _thinking_? But when she gives him a cautious stroke, he slowly shifts, the tension uncoiling. It's not sticky and she doesn't want to risk his upset after they've just managed to convince him he'll be all right and not stuck in this big empty house by himself.

At least Shinichi had been in middle school when they'd gone off to America.

"We have to tell his parents," she said, continuing to pet the child's hair as the bony fingers loosened their grip. "And dad… and mom… oh god they're going to be terrified." Beika is already a terrible place to live if you have parents and you're older now the kid is too out of his league.

Agasa's hair looks whiter, he looks five years older. "We can't tell people, Ran-kun." His voice is tired, beady eyes on the boy who was practically a son to him. He's probably listening, Shinichi had always been a curious (nosy) child. "He doesn't know who attacked him, and he doesn't remember you. If word got out that a teenager became a small child…" he trails off and for a moment Ran imagines camera after camera, terror after terror, that little panicked fit becoming a full on attack, and people, mysterious, unidentifiable people with unknown features and knives in their back pockets and guns waiting in the wings. It was bad enough to be sure they would shoot her best friend. It was even worse to imagine they'd do it to what was basically a tall toddler. "We don't even know where to start."

He's right, Ran knows it, but she can't help but think that she's also a child and she can't carry this all by herself. Neither of them are able, capable of handling this. That's right. And the rightness of it burns.

"They should still know," she says, and he nods. He knows he can't stop her, no one can actually stop her. Shinichi had tried many times before and now, now he couldn't.

She pets Conan on the head once more, like he's a dog more than a person. But he doesn't seem to mind. He just seems perpetually exhausted. Or overwhelmed. She remembers being overwhelmed a lot at four.

She's already thinking of him as Conan. The very thought makes her chest tighten around her stomach, but she bears it. "Professor," Ran says instead. "Can you help me get him in some better clothes and some bandages?"

"Of course," he says, like it's no big deal. Even though this is only the beginning. Even though document after document awaits, lie after lie, pain after pain.

What will she tell people when the teachers say Shinichi is getting pulled out of school? What's the most likely lie that they'll swallow with ease because no one likes him anyway? He has to focus on his budding career. He's helping someone internationally.

Conan shifts, looks at her guilelessly, sadly, as if he really does understand what's in her head. And it clicks.

He's working on a long term set of cases and it's better for everyone if he just stays there when it's over. That's it. That's all it is. And a few days later, Edogawa Conan will transfer to Teitan Elementary where he'll live normally, an abandoned child like a second chance.

It's so perfect that Ran considers vomiting her soda.


	3. Chapter 3

_Warnings: parents as people, Kogoro and his unknown past, trauma, past divorce_

* * *

III.

Her father isn't happy.

But then, he wouldn't be. There was a new mouth to feed, a new person to look after, and she was unhappy. For all his faults, her father was a good father in the end. Kudo Shinichi had never been someone he particularly liked, felt too rich and big for his breeches. And there was the fact that he was a better detective, something her father could never have admitted out loud if he tried. But Kudo Shinichi had still been a kid to him, some little punk who meant well and was too big.

He can see that brat in Edogawa Conan with the look in his eyes, all blue and contemplating, but that's where the similarities end. Edogawa Conan is much quieter, bows his head more, buries his hands in his pockets and shrinks to be unseen. His eyes twitch about the room more than once and he thanks them too much, too politely. Like he's fitting the clothes he wears.

At the very least, he does have a child's appetite and a child's way to crash. He's asleep on the couch before Kogoro even leaves the privacy of the bathroom with Ran. He still has a case to go on after all. And there's no benefit to bringing them, even though he'd feel better if he did.

A guy who hit kids with bats and poisoned them? For being curious? Beika is a bad enough place. Crime congregates here, deep down in between tv shows and horse races he truly wants to figure out why. It's a cesspool of _shit_ , if he's honest and if it were any less expensive to move he'd do it as soon as Ran graduates.

"You'll have to tell your mother," he says, and he's reluctant, splashing his face with more water and running to check for stubble. It's a rich client, a good case. He needs to look his best. He needs to present competency.

He really doesn't want to go.

Not with Ran's hands shaking so bad with the knife that they order takeout. Not with her eyes puffy and this kid having to be convinced repeatedly that it's fine if he stays, even before Kogoro can even _refuse_ or consider refusing.

"I'll call her," she agrees and her voice is absent for a moment, like she's all over the floor instead of right in front of him. And he does get it, he does understand, her best friend is dead, gone, finite. For no reason. Because of pride. Because of some asshole. Because of things they don't know. How many times did that happen with the police? How many times does he sometimes go to bed dreaming of that with the people he loved in the place of strangers with degrees and specialties and all the preparation in the world? "What's the client, Dad?"

"Guy says his daughter is missing. He'll pay well. We'll be good until next month if I find her." His voice turns clipped and quick, eager and hungry. He can't help it, he really can't. This is something he does love. Even without Eri, even without the immediate materialism he loves his job and he knows how to do it. He just… hasn't wanted to in so long. There's no benefit for most people. There's no reason to take it seriously in a city like this. And yet… here he is, doing it anyway. "The butler reported it," he continues, because it seems to be helping. Her eyes are opening a little wider, the concern physically visible in her face. "The guard dogs didn't cause any fuss at all either."

"Maybe it's someone they know then." Ran looks at her hands, solemn eyed. "Dogs are terrifyingly loyal. If they trust everything is fine, it probably means the person who did it was well known and didn't mean any harm. They're trained so well, like in the force, right? It'd be hard to drug that many dogs all at once and not get spotted."

His first instinct is to roll his eyes, but Kogoro pauses instead and thinks it over. Firstly because he's got her looking less like she wants to pass out and hit the floor the second he goes to the door, but because that's true. Even if it was just someone they knew, they'd find it weird to find their charge being taken where they weren't supposed to be. A fuss would be kicked up… surely. That happened at elementary schools, it'd just be like that but with lots of sharp teeth.

"It's not a kidnapping?" he says out loud. And as he says it, something fills his gut. "But it could become one. A small child left by themselves somewhere could become one just as easily." He glances at his phone in the cradle. He could call the inspector. He could, he should. But this may just be paranoia. And old friends or not, Megure is not as fond of him anymore.

And maybe he's right to be.

But that's for later. He has to go, now.

"I'll be back. Call your mother, all right?"

Ran nods. There's more color in her cheeks, she almost looks happier. "I will dad. Be careful."

He laughs, like there's any way he could be anything else. He was the devil of the judo team after all.

And Kogoro leaves, though he doesn't want to.

(In the end it's good that he does. There is one less victim that day.)

* * *

Where Mouri Kogoro is skeptical and bitter and tired, Kisaki Eri is sick and terrified and furious. And she barrels over even though it's so far away, she breaks probably a dozen laws she's bound to uphold and if the city was any less of the hellhole it was, people would notice. But tonight they don't and tonight she is glad. And tonight she will not fight with her ex husband.

She comes in with warmer food and old clothes from the times the two children had shared homes and a set of toiletries and a list of paperwork for Kogoro to deal with in the morning. She won't get a hold of Yukiko and Yusaku this late, she assumes, but she tries anyway, in between holding Ran's hand and watching the now named Conan sleeping in light fits, tossing and turning and crying out like he's in pain. ANd he very well might be. The boy needs a god damn doctor not a crackpot professor.

"They poisoned a child." Her voice is steady, of course, she's a lawyer, you learn to produce bullshit no matter what side of the coin you fall at.

"We're sixteen mom," Ran says, voice stuffy from having sobbed as quietly as possible again.

"Children," Eri says without pause. "Just because you got taller and bleed between your legs doesn't make you an adult anymore. You're just older and so was he." Ran flinches and Eri doesn't quake against it. Ran can make her father bend and fold like wet paper but Eri is sterner, stubborn in the same way. "Just because he can solve murder cases and keep cool under pressure doesn't make him an adult, Ran. That's the mistake everyone else has made. Don't you do it now, you'll blame yourself for something that wasn't your fault."

Ran freezes. And she shakes. But she nods, looks her mother right in the eye and nods.

"We'll find who did this," Eri says, steady and not real, like she isn't shaken to her heart. Because this world is awful, and her daughter feels it close to her now. Like it didn't happen before of course, but the cruelty of the world, the inevitable cruelty that came from some people, is laid bare.

And Eri is not a detective. Eri is not a hero with a cape nor a paragon of justice. But she is a lawyer mother, and hell truly hath no fury.

And the heavens help those who think Kudo Yukiko won't be the same.

"We'll find them," Eri continues. "And we will put an end to them. Not you. This is not revenge. Okay, Ran?"

Ran does not nod or agree. She only stares with the normal spike of her hair starting to droop.

"You need to keep him safe," Eri says instead of what she wants to say, what is buried in her heart to say. "And you can't do that if they kill you too." _And we can't avenge you, without you we have nothing._

The fight leaves her eyes. Ran nods.

Conan stirs, but this time it's with open eyes and curled fists. "Ran-nee-chan…?"

Eri watches her daughter's demeanor soften, watches the love and joy and bitterness well up like water in her being as she turns away. "Conan-kun! Did we wake you up?"

"I'm sorry Ran-nee-chan."

Eri watches her daughter age and deage in her face. "Don't apologize Conan-kun. Nothing's your fault."

"It is," the boy says and she can see Kudo Shinichi even if Ran can't. "It's Shinichi-nii-san's fault and I'm not him. But you're still sad. And that's my fault cause I can't help."

Ran doesn't answer. Can't answer. There are tears streaming down her face. Eri remembers her running home yelling about not being a crybaby and that the boy who said it being a meanie.

Eri lifts herself up from the floor and moves over to sit by Conan. She introduces herself and he bows his head in a precocious little way. And when Ran has moved away to clean her face, Eri leans over and whispers.

"If you want to make her happy, Conan-kun, do your best to smile. Then she won't be able to help herself."

"Really?" And she's treated to that child look of "adults know everything" that she can't help but grin.

"Yes. Live and smile and work hard. Be a good example for my Ran, okay?"

He nods as she pulls away. It looks very serious, but the Kudo boy had always been in part.

"I'll do my best, Miss Kisaki," he whispers back and he smiles. He smiles a small thing that's genuinely sweet.

And even if Ran is still walking on shaky legs and a puffy face, Eri can breathe a little easier.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ And thus ends _a thimble's worth of blood_! This was supposed to end with Conan's first murder but I think it's better that I hold off on that. Please let me know what you think of Eri and Kogoro as I'll probably be featuring more of them soon enough. So what happens next? Next is child's first (?) murder in _the first crow_ , followed by a short mc titled _twigs and kids,_ aka The Detective Boys. From there? Well, we'll see. Please leave a review down below, they really help me out and I hope you enjoyed this!


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